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At least a few of the people dead set against these methods are college professors seeing new students come in with no math skill whatsoever. See: http://cliffm

At least a few of the people dead set against these methods are college professors seeing new students come in with no math skill whatsoever. See: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-good-are-uw-students-in-math.html http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-good-are-uw-studen... The 'classic' methods are algorithims. They work. They aren't any more complicated than the various other methods, but at least they work in all situations. The other methods, while they may be useful for fermi problems, don't always have a clear way to progress when the problems become harder. And the kicker is, they're no simpler when you account for all the 'non-easy' numbers. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI Whatever the reason, there's a dramatic decline in the understanding of basic math by students at reasonably good universities over the last 20ish years. I've done the math, and I think I was on the tail end of a conservative swing. There's been one new math swing in that time, and I think we're heading back again. (This as the parent of small kids who's done way too much reading about the various curricula that are available, and how even the best ones used in classrooms pretty much suck. Jump and Singapore are the two that I know of that are pretty good, but they're not not USAian, so they don't get used in the schools. It is kinda funny going over problems in Jump and seeing the canadian cultural content.)

seltzered 16y ago
Came in here to post that exact video, it made perfect sense to me. I learned with the classic algorithms, and have kindof self-realized some of the newer methods after college when needing to solve some basic math in my head to "eyeball" whether something will work. It's convenient, but not exact. You can't use it in areas where exact answers are required to make sure you're right, and the classical equations serve as "debug/trace information" to see where you went wrong.
- Someone 16y ago
  I disagree with that video. The alternative methods for multiplication and long division are fine. For long division, the classical one doesn't even work on harder problems. Listen carefulley, and you'll hear several "because we know two times six equals twelve"; for most, that will not work when dividing by say 4367. Also, I doubt that price of books is part of this problem. There is one argument that I think is valid: kids get insufficient exercise to master these. Even that need not be a bad thing. I cannot recite the bible, but the time I gained by not even attempting to master that (I think) gave me time to read a zillion other books.
eru 16y ago
About the video: It's funny to compare `standard algorithms' (or their expression) from different education systems. And the lattice method et al are really the same as long division.

seltzered 16y ago

Came in here to post that exact video, it made perfect sense to me. I learned with the classic algorithms, and have kindof self-realized some of the newer methods after college when needing to solve some basic math in my head to "eyeball" whether something will work. It's convenient, but not exact. You can't use it in areas where exact answers are required to make sure you're right, and the classical equations serve as "debug/trace information" to see where you went wrong.

Someone 16y ago
I disagree with that video. The alternative methods for multiplication and long division are fine. For long division, the classical one doesn't even work on harder problems. Listen carefulley, and you'll hear several "because we know two times six equals twelve"; for most, that will not work when dividing by say 4367. Also, I doubt that price of books is part of this problem. There is one argument that I think is valid: kids get insufficient exercise to master these. Even that need not be a bad thing. I cannot recite the bible, but the time I gained by not even attempting to master that (I think) gave me time to read a zillion other books.

eru 16y ago

About the video: It's funny to compare `standard algorithms' (or their expression) from different education systems. And the lattice method et al are really the same as long division.